


language is an annoying necessity

by slybrunette



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-02
Updated: 2008-12-02
Packaged: 2017-10-02 03:55:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,506
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slybrunette/pseuds/slybrunette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post 5x10. This is a scene out of roughly two-thirds of this week. And last.</p>
            </blockquote>





	language is an annoying necessity

"You paged me?" Her eyes are wide and unassuming, and he's half naked in the on-call room so she should have this figured out already. Knowing Lexie, she probably thinks he was just taking a nap. Her innocence is a source of silent amusement for him. "Did you need something?"

He gets his hands on her, feeling as much bare flesh as he can get to, her arm and just under the back of her scrub top (she giggles, says his name in this high pitched voice that would make him laugh if he didn't have his lips pressed to her neck, kissing down her throat, because he knows it'll kill any desire in her to be professional at work). It's new, both because it's an actual relationship, in that he's sleeping with the same person for longer than a week, even if no one else knows, and because it's her. Little Grey. This girl who's completely and undeniably new at this to the point where it's almost funny to watch her try to figure out how to deal with this, with him. "Yeah, I needed something," he murmurs against her skin.

And, see, this is a scene out of two-thirds of this week. And last. Some form of this, meeting up in on-call rooms, his hotel room, somewhere, anywhere.

Except for one small, but very important, difference.

"We shouldn't be..." she starts, quits in favor of leaning in, mouth open and inviting, her nails against his scalp and he definitely isn't going to pull back and ask her to complete it. She does that on her own, when she realizes that she didn't quite finish anything. "There are people that will be looking for us, or, well, you, and then they'll find us and - "

The easiest way to stop her from talking is to keep her lips busy. Even so, he tells her, "what Derek doesn't know and can't find won't hurt him," because they are purposely on a floor that neither of them has any business being in, just so Derek won't look unless he checks every single on-call room in the building and there is no way he has enough time to do that between brain surgery and sleeping with the other Grey.

Then there's a knock. Of course there's a knock.

"Mark, is that you?" A voice that is discernibly, and terribly unfortunately, belonging to one Addison Montgomery floats through the door, and Lexie pretty much kills all contact between them right then and there, disappearing between the beds and the wall and remaining crouched there, hiding. Hiding.

His attention is split, however, and so he can't roll his eyes or tell her to stop because he's busy asking, "Addison?" with lowered eyebrows and the feeling like he just got caught with his hand in the cookie jar again.

The knob turns and he can hear her heels clack against the linoleum before he can actually see her. Absent is her red hair but everything else is the same. The dress, the lipstick, the look she's giving him like she already knows what he's up to (it's not that hard to figure out). "Nurses again, Mark?" She asks, before she has the chance to look around and notice that they in fact appear to be the only two people in the room, from her angle at least. "Okay, are you sleeping with invisible people now? Run out of actual people?"

"Hi Addison, nice to see you. How are you; I'm fine." Mark says, both in response to her lack of greeting and also in attempt to distract her from delving any further into what was previously going on before she walked inside. She would tell Derek.

She narrows her eyes, studying him. "Who are you in here with?"

"Jealous?" He asks, a definite non-answer.

"Not even vaguely," she says, eyes lighting on the end of the bed, inches away from Lexie. Her and her heels travel over to the edge of the bed, peering down at the girl on the floor with a sort of half-interested curiosity. Lexie can't see her, doesn't know she's caught, until Addison asks, "Is that Meredith Grey's sister?"

Lexie moves at that. Jumps right up, startled, and stands ram-rod straight against the wall, looking to Mark like she's lost the ability to speak entirely.

"Addison, don't you have somewhere else to be?" Mark tries again. He's a grown-up, they all are, they don't need to be having this conversation.

Apparently she'd prefer to ignore him entirely, and just continues on her own train of thought. "Now you're sleeping with interns. You hate interns."

"And you hate them too. Didn't seem to matter when you pulled Karev into the on-call room did it?"

"How did you - " her attention turns off of Lexie and back onto him for the moment. "Different, Mark, very different."

"How?"

"I wasn't sleeping my way through the hospital."

"Times have changed, Addy," he replies, talking over her.

"So everyone keeps saying and yet everything looks exactly the same." It's exasperation in her voice as she trains her gaze on Lexie again, with a, "are you going to say something?"

Lexie, true to form, has her mouth clamped up tight, not looking either of them in the eyes. No one wants to be in the middle of what's developing into an argument between two people who clearly had a relationship, least of all if you're also sleeping with one of the people involved in said argument.

"You can talk Tiger Lily, you aren't going to get anyone in trouble; no one's going to make you walk the plank." Addison's words are biting, her tone less so. Because this is Meredith Grey's little sister, and being mean to her will only look like transference and anger meant to be directed toward sister and Addison was over Derek before she left.

"This really...has nothing to do with me, so I'm just going to...go." Lexie replies, finally, slipping out of the narrow space between Mark and Addison as quickly as she possibly could.

"Lexie," he calls after her, using her first name for a change, but to no avail. The door closes behind her, and he looks back at Addison, with a frown. "Happy now?"

\---

She speeds up when she sees him coming, at the end of the day, headed right out the door like she's got blinders on and can't see past her way home.

"Got a hot date or something Grey?" He asks, ten feet down the hall from her and closing as fast as he can muster after a long day.

"No." She says, not at all slowing down. He still manages to lock-step with her, with some effort. "No, not at all. I'm going to go home and forget that any of this ever happened."

"What, that thing with Addison?" It's his best effort at not making it sound like a big deal. Granted Addison had tattled to both Derek and Meredith and he'd caught shit about it for longer than he cared to admit, but it wasn't like there was anything they could actually do about it. "It's in the past."

"Right. Of course. It's always in the past." Her voice is laden with sarcasm. "Look, I did this before. With Alex Karev. The ex-girlfriend and the current - whatever. And I got left in the cold there, and then he forgot we slept together in the first place, so I'm used to drawing the short straw okay? You don't have to make excuses."

It's only there that he realizes she hasn't a clue about his and Addison's relationship, past what she saw today. It's not like she was around then; it's not like anyone would have told her. Lately it's easy to forget that she hasn't been here all along. "First of all, comparing me to Karev? Not exactly the wisest or most accurate move. Second, if you think Addison has _any_ interest in sleeping with me then you need to read up on your history."

She frowns, at first, then gives him a sort of quizzical look, like maybe she could believe him. She stills the questioning ‘really?' that nearly rolls of her tongue, too expected, too obvious, and decides for herself. He takes it as a sign when she asks, "Do you think there's a textbook on that? Because, you know, with the photographic memory and everything that might make things a lot easier."

Mark shrugs as she brushes a hand against the sleeve of his leather jacket, stopping herself before she reaches his hand, this need for contact she seems to need almost subconsciously, automatically - one she's gotten good at pulling back from because she realizes that this is Mark Sloane and he doesn't hold hands or do relationships, no matter what they're calling this.

It's a scene that has and will repeat over the next few days, weeks; it's a scene that maybe, in the distant future, might even change. It's all about the adjustments, about learning.


End file.
